Civil Rights Groups Sue Georgia Over Discriminatory Voter Maintenance Practice

Civil rights groups sued Georgia in federal court on Thursday over a process it uses to verify new voter registrations, saying the procedure was unreliable and discriminatory.

The Associated Press found this week that nearly 70 percent of the 53,000 people whose registrations are being scrutinized are black. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R), the state’s top election official and a named defendant in the suit, is locked in a tight race for governor with Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is black.

Georgia requires the information submitted in new voter registrations to exactly match the information the state has on file in either the state’s driver’s license database or a federal Social Security database. Georgians have 26 months to correct any discrepancies, or else they are removed from the voting rolls.

Voters on the suspense list, however, likely can’t vote by mail, and when they show up at the polls, poll workers may be confused about their eligibility, tweeted Danielle Lang, an attorney at Campaign Legal Center, which is one of the groups representing the plaintiffs in the case.

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